Abstract 747: Paracrine c-MET/HGF HCC PDX: evaluation of a biologics targeting c-MET

The interaction between the c-MET tyrosine kinase receptor (RTK) on the surface of cancer cells with its ligand, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) secreted from surrounding tumor stroma, results in paracrine signal transduction in cancer cells to promote growth, invasion, angiogenesis and metastases. c-MET gene amplification/over-expression, or activating mutations, frequently function as oncogenic driver in several types of cancers. c-MET is thus considered a key target(1) for both TKIs or biologics. However, lack of suitable animal models has represented an obstacle for the development of new cMET inhibitors. While patient derived xenografts (PDXs) mirror patients’ histopathological/genetic profiles(2-6), they usually lose human stroma, the source of HGF; moreover the HGF originated from murine stroma is incapable of triggering a paracrine signaling because of lack of cross reactivity with the human c-MET. Some PDX grow independent of paracrine mechanisms because of their constitutive c-MET activation by the presence of activating mutations, gene amplification or autocrine signaling, and can be used to evaluate the efficacy of TKIs(5, 7, 8). However they are not suitable to assess biologics, e.g. antibodies disrupting receptor-ligand interaction. Alternatively it is possible to grow tumors in hu-HGF-transgenic immunocompromised mice (humanization) where an artificial paracrine signaling is created. Interestingly, we have identified a unique HCC-PDX, LI0801, which maintains human stroma throughout passages, as demonstrated by immunochemistry staining for human vimentine and human HGF, both markers of stromal components(7, 8). The mechanisms of human stroma maintenance in this PDXremain unclear. We showed that LI0801 responds to different TKIs(7, 8). In addition we evaluated the efficacy of an anti-human c-MET monoclonal antibody in reducing tumor burden in LI0801, and we were able to demonstrate great tumor response to anti-human c-MET antibody, which is significantly more effective than crizotinib. To the best of our knowledge, LI0801 is the first paracrine c-MET PDX reported, and represents an important model to study paracrine cMET/HGF signaling and to evaluate new c-MET inhibitors, both TKIs, and biologics. References 1. Comoglio PM, et al. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2008;7:504-16. 2. Ding L, et al. Nature. 2010;464:999-1005. 3.Marangoni E, et al. A new model of patient tumor-derived breast cancer xenografts for preclinical assays. Clin Cancer Res. 2007;13:3989-98. 4.Chen D, Oncotarget. 2015. 5. Yang M, et al. International journal of cancer Journal international du cancer. 2013;132:E74-84. 6. Zhang L, et al. A subset of gastric cancers with EGFR amplification and overexpression respond to cetuximab therapy. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2992. 7. Bladt F, et al. Cancers (Basel). 2014;6:1736-52. 8. Chen D. AACR Annual Meeting 2012. 2012;Poster. Citation Format: Dawei Chen, Ziyong Sun, Likun Zhang, Jie Cai, Davy X. Ouyang, Jean-Pierre Wery, Henry Li. Paracrine c-MET/HGF HCC PDX: evaluation of a biologics targeting c-MET. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 747.